Love

The Coy One

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749–1832

Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring (1853) · From Songs

Love

ONE Spring-morning bright and fair,
Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,

Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.
Of his lambs some two or three

Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;
First she eyed him roguishly,

Then for answer sang but this:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.
Ribbons did the next one offer,

And the third, his heart so true
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer

Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too,--
Still 'twas Ia! le ralla, &c.

MLA

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “The Coy One.” Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/goethe/7/.

Chicago

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “The Coy One.” Translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/goethe/7/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe